Never Alone
by Kae Noel
Summary: He didn’t have to worry about that she was back in control now, only to quickly find that nothing was indeed under her control. Even her own thoughts and emotions rebelled against her will. He had watched from behind her eyes as she threw herself into h


**Never Alone**

Kae Noel

Chapter 1

Floating
    
                                                     Stones taught me to fly
    
                                                     Love taught me to lie
    
                                                     Life taught me to die
    
                                                     So it's not hard to fall
    
                                                     When you float like a cannonball
    
                                                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celena felt a gentle touch on her check as she dozed and leaned into the comfort of it, searching for more. She mumbled something incoherent and turned to whoever it was, curling up in their gentle arms. Whatever she was dreaming felt so warm and comforting she didn't want to ever wake up.

What she felt was not was not a dream nor was it actually occurring in the physical world, rather it was more like a dream though it could not be defined as one.

Dilandau sighed, 'holding' his alter ego as she slept. He loved her, it was plain to see though he would never resign himself to admitting it, to himself or otherwise. Rather he simply had allowed her to both torment and sooth him. There had been moments when she would beat restlessly against the chains in her mind that tied her back and drew him out. And yet there had been others when he would retreat into the black void that they shared and it was in those moments that he allowed her to sooth him. It was bitter torture that they both endured. They were one person and yet two separate entities, developing more so into that unstable realm as they aged together. He had fought for containment and yet longed to simply let go, to explode or something, anything besides let their torment continue.

He didn't have to worry about that she was back in control now, only to quickly find that nothing was indeed under her control. Even her own thoughts and emotions rebelled against her will. He had watched from behind her eyes as she threw herself into her bed and cried herself to sleep. Only when she had begun to doze deeply did he reach out to her.

Sure, she knew he was there but he had stayed out of her life. He felt trapped, and yet the containment brought with it a sense of stability, only now that too had begun to wear away. Her emotions were becoming a torrential storm that would drown them both. 

Now… now he wanted to rip Allen's throat from his neck. The fool had suggested she live in Palas with Millerna, in hopes Millerna would find her a suitable young courtier. Celena had objected, and he had practically commanded her to go, claiming the experience would make her into a proper woman.

'_Like I'm not already?!_' Celena had screamed in her mind, temporarily deafening him. '_Ouch_' he winced.

'_Damn that fool knight. Heavenly my ass!_' Dilandau had fumed, only to find his words coming from her mouth. He heard them leave the tip of her tongue and didn't know whether to be terribly frightened out strangely proud of her. He opted to just ignore it as she ran down the hallways of the rebuilt fortress, doing his best to help her remember the way down the corridor so as not to run into anything with her eyes closed tight against her tears. 

'_I don't want to be some ditzy little thing that flits mindlessly about the queen's court in the uncomfortable monstrosities they call gowns_.' She murmured in her mind, still fuming.

'_Good, I wouldn't be able to stand that either_.' He murmured back. His arms crossed over his chest as he leaned his on the black nearly unseen wall to his right. The thought of being trapped into the tedious, mindless events of court life made him cringe. And they both knew that the mental strength they both needed to remain at least partially sane, or at least a stable, entity would dissolve under such conditions. '_God I would rather die!_' she shouted.

'_In fact it probably would kill us… or someone else, which though it might be fun…_' 

'_Would land us in an insane asylum, we're lucky we're not there now…_'

'_At least that fool brother of ours is good for _something'

'_But he's still an ass._'

She was so upset she didn't even realize the conversation was between her and her alter ego, it had been so long since she'd even acknowledged his presence, let alone spoken directly to him. But now, as she felt herself entering one of the breakdowns that she had so often comforted him through, she was retreating as he had. She was withdrawing from the world if only from a moment to restabilize.

She grabbed the bottle of fine Austrian red wine from the an neglected thecrystal goblet that sat next to it, drinking deeply of the sweet confection. 

'_Ooh! Why does Allen have to infuriate me so?! I thought having my brother caring for me would be nice, not irritating oppression!_' 

'_What do you expect from the oaf?_'

She took another swig, clenching her jaw as she forced a particularly large swallow to make its way down her throat.

'_Nothing less I suppose_.' With that she had tossed herself into the soft plum-colored satin bed sheet and pulled the bed curtains closed around her. A soft crimson light shone through the curtains, illuminating her form in the wine colored shadows. 

'_I'd rather just do something different for once, anything but become like that adulteress whore who calls herself the Queen of Austuria yet favors my brother's bed to her own._' He couldn't help but chuckle at that. She sipped at the bottle this time, watching the liquid swirl but not really seeing any of it.

She cursed and Dilandau just shook his head, '_Why should I care?_' He asked himself and though he could find many reasons he ignored them all.

She had broken down, tears pouring over her cheeks, blotting the pillow. _'Why couldn't I have stayed the secret person? I hate this! I don't have the strength to live any more!_' She sobbed and Dilandau shuddered. '_DILANDAU!_' she screamed and then fell back to sobbing, he wasn't sure what to do.

'_I'm sorry_' he whispered. Probably the first and only person he would apologize to, but he wasn't even sure she had heard him. Her thoughts and senses were so clouded now that he probably could have screamed it and she would have ignored him.

He longed to hold her in his arms, remembering the nights he had spent sobbing into black silk sheets, the best general in Zaibach with the best soldiers in Zaibach had wept, not wanting the burden of life upon his shoulders.

He could easily transpose the image of himself and the image he perceived of Celena, a chill ran up one side of his spine and back down the other side at the thought. 

Her sobs subsided and he softly crept to the image of her that lay with in their mind, gently he stroked her cheek and ran his fingers through her hair, a calm spreading over him as her face softened. He lay beside her as she turned into his touch and he softly held her as she clung to his embrace in her sleep. Sighing he fell asleep with his arms around her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celena woke up to feel arms around her shoulders and a warm chest beneath her head. She breathed in deeply and realized her arms were wrapped around who ever it was and their legs were intertwined as well. Graoning slightly from the headache she had she pondered how just how drunk she had gotten herself last night… She shifted her face to look up into bright garnet eyes, framed by silver locks. She blinked and gasped, not knowing weather to scream or just be confused, she opted for the later.

Dilandau smirked when Celena looked up at him with that adorably confused look. She took a shaky breath and looked at his chest, not wanting to look in his eyes. "Don't worry Celena; I won't hurt you, that would be completely stupid."

Celena relaxed considerably and whispered. "Why are you holding me?"

She gazed into his eyes, feeling awkward, calm, and intrigued all at the same time.

"I could ask the same question." 

Celena shook her head and then buried her face in his shirt. "I forgive you." She murmured. Dilandau softly stroked her hair with one hand and her back with the other, surrounding her in a warm embrace.

"For what?" He was still groggy himself.

"You apologized last night, and I forgive you." She smiled. 

"Thank you." Her head still lay over his heart; she ran her fingers lazily over the black silk shirt he wore, trailing over the still trim and strong muscles there. Even in this realm he was strong, though his weariness showed through much more strongly and just as clearly as her own. 

She looked up into his face and he smiled.

They were constantly on the brink of collapse, just as in those moments after they had lost the dragon slayers. They had learned how to feel the tremors of a coming quake, to brace themselves in the prevail doorways of their home, and to cling to each other in the moments when nothing else was stable or even tangible for that matter. Then such things had been few and far between with the drugs ranging from valium to myriad of other psychostimatic drugs but when they did… only this time the sorcerers would never cart them away and treat them like a sick lab rat. Neither of them ever spoke of those moments but both remembered in cruel detail those days of torment, inside the void that had been created to contain their simultaneous personalities they had clung to each other, until their stabilizing agents and fate alterations would bind her there, throwing him into the outside realm.

It was in those moments that his insanity reigned most freely. A terrible echo of her screams from behind the chains that bound her and kept him in the terribly cruel light of reality. He hated it. Hated every moment and thus rebelled against life, made a point of destroying it as the days rolled by until the sharp edges of the serum wore off and he could retreat again. 

There were days in those times where he looked longingly at the glint of his blade in the moonlight night, longing to be free of this life but not willing to sacrifice hers as well, he couldn't do that to her, it would be murder in the worst sense…. But it wasn't as if he hadn't murdered hundreds, of course he had, he was machine bred, trained and chemically altered for war and bloodshed, of course he had killed more than his share, more than entire armies share, it was built into his very nature. Not hers, no she was free from that world, didn't have to be part of if she didn't want to. Yet, she had chosen to stand beside him through nearly every stroke; each laugh that was his was hers, each swing of a broad sword, each sweeping breath of flames. Perhaps she really had been the insane one all along. 

He swept a lock from her face and she sighed.

"Is there any other way?"

"We could run away."

"No that wouldn't do, they'd find you."

"But there has to be a way out."

"I can think of one, but I'm not sure its safe..."

"NO"

"…But it would work…"

"NO!"

"… there would be no pompous suitors…"

"…No…"

"…And no living with Millerna…"

"except when she comes here…"

"But then she'd steer clear…."

"Hmmm… NO, we can't they'd put you on trail we'd be locked away, the only reason their letting us stay with Allen is because I'm his sister; they wouldn't understand that we're one in the same. Even if they let us stay I know his patience would run thin…No, I won't let them put you on trail, I won't let it happen…" She sobbed into his chest, images of him on the witness stand being rallied by insolent prosecutors... that fool Van and his brat of Queen Hitomi testifying to his insanity and numerous war crimes… "No, I can't let them do that to you."

"What if we could change it back, but make Allen think you're unstable"

"But there are no guarantees." 

"That's never bothered us in the past"

"Yeah but...

"Do you have so little faith in me?"

"No, I have all the faith in the world in you."

"Then let's try it"

There was a knock on the door to her room.

"Celena? Honey?"

They gagged simultaneously, the charm was so thick she wanted to hurl and he wanted to run a hair pin through the guy's skull.

She giggled at that, he smiled; at least someone was amused by him.

"Come on lets do this"

He grinned and slowly pushed through the barriers he hadn't crossed in so long while she gently pushed through him, their souls strung tight and for a second and the suddenly sprung free, parting. The dizzy falling through darkness, each alone….

Wait, alone, that wasn't right, no they'd always been together, separated by the bounds that held them in separate worlds. This was different, and as he fell he panicked for a moment, the loss of her presence so unnerving that he could hardly stand it, as if he was suddenly void of something that was so fully him he couldn't stand it. 

She screamed, it was as if she'd just fallen into the deepest darkest pit one could imagine, and it was all with out he, he was her strength her fortress, her everything. She sobbed lightly as she felt herself touch down on the soft mattress, in almost the exact same position that she had left to reach their temporal plane.

'Oh God" she thought, hearing her own thought echo within the void of darkness that she was in, "no"

Dilandau felt the bed beneath him, but something was wrong he wasn't in the position she had been in, rather he was mirrored, an almost exact replication only reversed, and completely different. 

"Celena" a soft whisper from the doorway, he grinned, waiting for the manwhore to pull back the thin veil of the bed shades.

He heard a soft breathe from beside him "no" his eyes flew open only to be accosted by the glorious sight of the beautiful young woman beside him. "Shit"

Celena's eyes flew open at that.

"WHAT THE HELL!" Allen had just lightly pulled back the stays and now through them open completely.

"Dilandau!" Celena threw herself in his arms, "Oh God I thought I'd lost you forever."

"No, never"

"We'll never be apart"

"No, never, we'll always be together..."

"One in the same..."

Allen stood there, twitching as he watched his sister embrace…herself, well more appropriately her for herself, and alter ego… though now it was obviously completely different. He tried to speak but all that came out was a vague representation of the word "how?" 

Tears streamed down both their faces as they tried to deny what they couldn't handle. They were separate, alone though together, alone, no together, always together, always, always, always.

Disclaimer:

I don't own Escaflowne, and sadly enough I don't own Damien Rice or his beautiful song Cannonball….


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